Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: The Laws of Armed Conflict

Showing posts with label The Laws of Armed Conflict. Show all posts

Thursday, October 27, 2022

A dead family in Gaza: The other half of the story

Last year, during the May 2021 fighting in Gaza, an IAF missile destroyed an apartment in Gaza City, killing a mother and two of her children - Rima Telbani(31), Zeid(4) and Maryam(2).

Israel was blamed for targeting civilians. The New York Times published a photo of the children.

Today, another victim of that attack succumbed to his wounds. His name is Muhammad Ouda Yousef Al-Telbani.

He was a Hamas terrorist.

In fact, in the building at the same time were two other senior Hamas terrorists who were killed - who were not mentioned by PCHR.

Which means that the building was almost certainly a command and control center - and the cute Telbani kids were human shields for Hamas, including for their father.

That changes the story a bit, doesn't it?

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Amnesty report again accusing Israel of war crimes based on nothing but their hate for Israel (update)

Amnesty International has released a report on the August mini-war in Gaza where they say that Israel should be investigated for war crimes. (Unusually, they also accuse Islamic Jihad of possible war crimes for a single rocket misfire.)

Amnesty investigated three incidents, two of which are from Israeli fire. The first one:

Amnesty International has examined in detail two Israeli attacks that must be investigated as possible war crimes because they appear either to have deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects or to have been indiscriminate attacks. On 5 August 2022, an Israeli tank round struck the house of the alAmour family in Khan Yunis, where 11 civilians were staying, killing Duniana al-Amour, aged 22, and wounding her mother and her sister. Based on its identification of the projectile that struck the house as a “highly accurate” 120mm M339 tank round, and its calculation of the distance between the house and the closest military objects using satellite imagery, Amnesty International believes that the al-Amour family’s house was the intended target of the attack. The killing of Duniana al-Amour and the apparently deliberate targeting of her house must therefore be investigated as a possible war crime.

It does appear that Israel targeted a house. Amnesty says it "found no evidence that any members of the al-Amour family could reasonably be believed to be involved in armed combat. "

This is true. But Amnesty is hiding something - something that they certainly reviewed before writing this report. They are hiding what the ITIC wrote about this attack, that one of the "civilians" in the house was Islamic Jihad's commander of the southern Gaza Strip.

The ITIC is close to the Israeli military. It said that the fatal attack on the Falluja cemetery was from the IDF when even Haaretz assumed it was an errant Islamic Jihad rocket, so it cannot be accused of lying. It is the closest thing we have to an official IDF comment on the incident.

If a senior commander was in the house, it was a valid military target. It is a tragedy but certainly not a war crime.

Amnesty doesn't want you to know that, so they simply don't report it.

The second incident:

In another instance, on 7 August 2022, a missile apparently fired from a drone hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabalia, killing five children and seriously injuring another. Based on a review of pictures of the weapon’s remnants, Amnesty International determined that they were consistent with an Israeli guided missile. Unnamed sources from the Israeli army told an Israeli newspaper that a preliminary internal probe conducted by the army into the attack showed that neither Palestinian Islamic Jihad nor the AlQuds Brigades were firing rockets at the time of the attack and that Israel was carrying out attacks on “targets” near the area. Satellite imagery showed that there were no military targets visible in the area 10 days before the attack and residents interviewed by Amnesty International said that none appeared in the intervening period. There are strong indications that the strike on Al-Falluja cemetery was either a direct attack on civilians or an indiscriminate attack where Israel failed to comply with the obligation to take all feasible precautions to distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Notice how Amnesty assumes that the Israeli sources are simply lying when they say there were targets in the area. A "target" is likely a member or leader of Islamic Jihad. 10-day old satellite imagery will not find such a target, and residents being interviewed sure as hell will not admit they saw a militant even if they did. Amnesty simply assumes Israel either targeted kids for fun, or didn't check for civilians. It does not even consider that the laws of war say that a military commander can act based on the best intelligence information available at the time - he or she does not have to wait for 100% accuracy. Sometimes, as in this case, the information was not accurate enough and there is a tragedy.

And while Amnesty investigated only one (of several) Islamic Jihad rockets that fell short and killed people, it emphasizes that everything ends up being Israel's fault: "Israel’s apartheid remains the root cause of Palestinians’ suffering and the recurring violations against them and must be dismantled." Even though the August hostilities had nothing to do with the scurrilous "apartheid" accusation, to Amnesty, Israel's existence is the original sin.

And one that it is doing everything it can to destroy.

UPDATE: The Amnesty video accompanying the report mentions the Islamic Jihad rocket that killed 7 children - but then blames that on Israel as well.

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The anti-Israel Left makes up new laws, and ignores international law, when it comes to Israel

+972 Magazine has an article about how awful and immoral the IDF is.

The Israeli news site Ynet quoted army officials boasting that the ratio between “non-combatants” and combatants killed was “the best of all the operations.” And yet, Israel admits that it killed at least 11 people who had nothing to do with militant activities, including a five-year-old girl.

Yes, a five year old girl who was near a top Islamic Jihad target was killed. She was not the target. If there was a way to attack the target without killing the girl, the IDF would have. (Indeed, during Breaking Dawn, Israel did abort attacks on legitimate targets when civilians were around - as long as they could wait and attack the same target later without the civilians.) Since it couldn't attack the legitimate target without killing the girl, she was unfortunately killed as well.

These are the laws of armed conflict. The presence of civilians do not make a military target immune from attack. The fact that there was a five year old girl near the Islamic Jihad commander does not, under any interpretation of international law, mean that Israel must not attack the commander.

The laws of armed conflict are designed to protect civilians without impeding military efficiency in any way. Those words come from the International Committee of the Red Cross, no tme.

And it has to be that way, because otherwise terrorist groups can just ensure that they are well embedded with civilians and can then act with impunity.

That appears to be what +972 wants:

Dana — who asked to use a pseudonym, like all the former soldiers interviewed for this article — is a kindergarten teacher who lives in a wood-furnished apartment full of philosophy books in central Tel Aviv. During her military service, she took part in an assassination operation in which a five-year-old boy was killed in Gaza.

“When I served in the Gaza Division, we were following someone from Hamas, because [the army] knew he was hiding rockets,” she said. “They made a decision to eliminate him.”

Dana served as a signal traffic analysis officer in the operations room, where her job was to confirm that the missile had hit the right person. “We sent out a UAV to follow the man to kill him,” she said, “but we saw that he was with his son. A boy who was five or six years old, I think.

“....They killed the Hamas military operative, and the little boy who was next to him.”

Unless they had a way that they could kill the Hamas operative without killing the boy, this is not only a legal but also a moral decision, albeit tragic. It is a decision any army would make.

But to some, Israel must be held to much higher standards that every other nation. A single civilian killed among a hundred terrorists makes the entire operation immoral, according to them.

And endangering Israeli civilians as a result because of the resultant attacks that would or could happen by not attacking the terrorists? That is not part of the anti-Israel crowd's moral calculus.

That's not the only way this article demands Israel go beyond international law:

The army also admitted that it shoots unarmed people, according to a female officer who gave an interview to Ynet after the latest onslaught. “The [PIJ] operative came down from the position as he was unarmed, and I opened fire,” she said. “When he fell, I fired more.”

Legal combatants are any member of the armed forces (outside medical and religious personnel.) These include those who aid the fighting, not only those with literal weapons. A lookout, a messenger between combat forces, a radio operator helping aim mortars - all are considered combatants under international law, even when unarmed.

It is easy for Israel-hating propagandists to take an incident of collateral damage and frame it as a war crime. It doesn't make it true. From all indications, this operation was as moral as possible in warfare.

That is not good enough for inveterate inciters against Israel.

(The article mentions some other issues that are morally problematic if true. But they aren't publishing them to force the IDF to improve its policies - they are publishing them to incite more hatred against Israel.)

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"Human rights groups" bending over backwards to NOT blame Islamic Jihad for killing over a dozen children

The Fallujah cemetery in Jabalya, where 5 children were killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket.
Note the spray pattern of tiny holes from the shrapnel that PIJ uses to maximize death and damage.

The response of "human rights groups" to the fighting in Gaza last weekend proves, beyond any doubt, how they try to obscure the truth about Islamic Jihad's killing of over 20 civilians, including at least 12 children - even though they know the truth quite well.

No fewer than four human rights groups have investigated every death in Gaza last week. If you parse their statements carefully, every one of them know that Islamic Jihad rockets killed most of the kids.

And not one will say this explicitly, because that would water down their criticism of Israel.

Gaza's Health Ministry says that 48 were killed over the weekend (and from their wounds since) including 16 children. PCHR issued their summary in their weekly report yesterday, after they have had four days to investigate the deaths. They count 27 deaths in Gaza - and say "Meanwhile, PCHR is still investigating other incidents that inflicted casualties and damage to property." They list only 3 children.

They completely ignore the deaths of (by their count) 21 civilians, including 12 children (the last one may have died after their report was prepared.)

What kind of a human rights group ignores the violent death of 12 children, not even mentioning them beyond a laconic mention of "other incidents that inflicted casualties"?

A typical one, it seems. Because we see the same lack of interest in mentioning Islamic Jihad rockets at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 47 Palestinians were killed during the offensive, including 16 children and four women, and 360 others were injured, including 151 children and 58 women. Eighteen residential units were destroyed, while dozens of others were partially damaged.

Al Mezan’s fieldwork team works to document and investigate every single act of hostilities that occurred in the Gaza Strip and has so far verified the killing of 27 Palestinians and the complete destruction of 12 homes by Israeli forces. Al Mezan continues to conduct its own independent field investigations and collect information on all incidents of killing and damaging or destruction of houses, property, and other civilian objects in Gaza.

They know at least 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they refuse to even mention the possibility. 12 kids dead and the two major Palestinian human rights groups ignore them.

But it is not only Palestinian human rights NGOs. The Palestinian division of Defense for Children International has done the exact same thing. As I have reported, their headline is meant to give people the impression that Israel killed 16 children: "16 Palestinian children in Gaza dead after Israeli military offensive." But they can only document 3 children, and say, "DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. "

At least DCI-P mentions the possibility of the children being killed by rocket fire, unlike PCHR and Al Mezan. But even after listing the mysterious unknown explosions, they emphasize that they want to blame Israel alone, saying, "The Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on August 5, killing at least 44 people and injuring at least 350, according to Al Jazeera." Their own investigations proves Al Jazeera is lying, but they want to blame Israel for the deaths of the children so they artfully write a report to give that impression.

And then there is the UN Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, which issued a press release that heavily implies that Israel is responsible for the deaths of all Gazans, but doesn't directly say it - because they know the truth as well.

UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet today expressed alarm at the high number of Palestinians, including children, killed and injured in the occupied Palestinian territory this year, including in intense hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza last weekend.

The civilian cost of the latest escalation in Gaza from 5-7 August was heavy. The UN Human Rights Office has verified that among the 48 Palestinians killed, there were at least 22 civilians, including 17 children and four women. The status of 22 fatalities remains undetermined.

...In violation of international humanitarian law, Palestinian armed groups also launched hundreds of rockets and mortars in indiscriminate attacks, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects in Israel as well as in Gaza.

You really have to parse the press release carefully to realize that they are barely hinting that some 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they don't mention that the majority of those "undetermined" ones are children.

All four of these human rights NGOs clearly know the truth, and all of them bend over backwards to obfuscate it and direct their audience's anger at Israel only - even though their own investigations indicate that over 80% of the children were killed by Islamic Jihad.

By blaming Israel exclusively for the deaths of the children, they are engaging in a blood libel, saying that Jews either purposefully target children or show a wanton disregard for their lives. In fact, every single child that was killed by Israeli airstrikes had been either a human shield or an unfortunate casualty during an attack on a legitimate military target, and there is no evidence of the slightest bit of Israeli negligence or violation of international law.

But beyond that, they have not issued a single word of condemnation for Islamic Jihad, not even mentioning its name. By ignoring or downplaying the rocket attacks and only blaming Israel, they are exonerating Islamic Jihad's war crimes.

Even worse, these reports from four major human rights NGOs show that the lives of the children really do not matter to them unless they can blame Israel. Their careful language is meant to hide the facts. Unless dead kids can be blamed on Israel, they don't want to talk about them. They try not to technically lie but they sure as hell don't want to tell the truth.

Which means that these are not human rights organizations. They are anti-Israel organizations who use human rights as a weapon against the Jewish state.

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08/11 Links Pt1: The ‘Fix’ Is In: How Hitler-Praising Palestinians Are Warping Gaza Conflict Coverage; Progressives for jihad; A look back at the first disastrous ‘Two-State Solution

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: The ‘Fix’ Is In: How Hitler-Praising Palestinians Are Warping Gaza Conflict Coverage

New York Times’ Fady Hanona Urges Missile Attacks on Israel
Out of the eight articles produced by The New York Times during the three-day PIJ-initiated conflict, six credit Fady Hanona as having contributed from Gaza City (see here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Hanona, a freelance producer and fixer who has also been hired by the BBC, The Guardian, and VICE News, appears to be working to further the anti-Israel narrative promoted by Palestinian terror organizations that seek the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

For one, he supports arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, having backed him repeatedly on Facebook (here, here, and here). Prior to his incarceration, Barghouti co-founded and headed the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an organization that murdered dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada (2000-2005).

Hanona moreover made light of the escape from prison of members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in September of last year (see here and here). Most of the escapees were serving life sentences for their roles in attacks on Israeli citizens. Ayham Kamamji, for example, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering teenager Eliyahu Asheri.

Indeed, Hanona makes no attempt to hide his desire that Israel be removed from the map, referring to the country’s sovereign territory as the “[19]48 lands,” while putting “Israel” in scare quotes.

During 2014’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza, the New York Times freelancer took to social media to threaten the murder of Ghassan Alian, an Israeli Druze who commanded the IDF’s Golani Brigade at the time.

Then, on August 18, 2014 — days before a ceasefire took effect between Israel and Hamas — Hanona urged the Palestinian “resistance” to reject a truce and continue its missile attacks on Tel Aviv, which had at that point already cost the lives of five civilians.

In another online post from the same month, he went as far as invoking Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to support his point about the strength of Gazan fighters. “As Hitler said, give me a Palestinian soldier and a German weapon, and I will make Europe crawl on its fingertips,” Hanona’s post read, citing an unconfirmed quote attributed to the man responsible for the murder of six million Jews.

Furthermore, the NYT fixer shared a now-deleted propaganda video of terrorist groups in Jenin on Facebook, telling his followers that Palestinians should return to “the culture of fighting and killing Israelis.”

“I don’t accept a Jew, Israeli or Zionist, or anyone else who speaks Hebrew. I’m with killing them wherever they are: children, elderly people, and soldiers,” Hanona asserted, adding: “The Jews are sons of the dogs… I am in favor of killing them and burning them like Hitler did. I will be so happy.” According to his Twitter feed, Israel’s security services subsequently flagged his name when he applied for a permit to travel to Jerusalem.

Brendan O'Neill: Progressives for jihad

Remember when progressives were opposed to hardline religious movements that use violence to try to destroy democratic states? Islamic Jihad is a thoroughly regressive movement that says it will settle for nothing less than the obliteration of Israel. It wants to create an Islamic State of Palestine in which Sharia would rule and all who fall foul of it - uppity women, homosexuals, atheists - would suffer.

Islamic Jihad is not a national liberation movement. It is a violent and extremist religious organization generously funded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. It rejects the political process and has executed numerous acts of indiscriminate slaughter in Israel in recent years, massacring hundreds of Israeli citizens in restaurants, at supermarkets, on buses.

Name me one nation on Earth that would turn a blind eye to such existential threats? If there was a well-armed group of religious fundamentalists a few miles from Britain that had sent suicide bombers to slaughter British men, women and children, we would act, no? And yet Israel is always condemned for acting.

Islamic Jihad is not good for the Palestinian people. Its activities in recent years have in part been designed to weaken the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Mahmoud Abbas-led government of the West Bank. It wants to dislodge the PA. That will help the Palestinian people, will it?

A look back at the first disastrous ‘Two-State Solution

To fully understand its origins, we must go back to the early years of the 20th century.

In 1920, Great Britain was given the responsibility by the League of Nations to oversee the Palestine Mandate after the ending of the 400-year-old Ottoman Turkish Empire’s occupation of much of the Middle East. Britain was to uphold the League’s express intention of reconstituting within the Mandatory territory a reborn Jewish national home.

The League of Nations created several articles in line with the original intent of the Balfour Declaration of November 29, 1917. At the last minute, however, a new article was introduced by the British Colonial Office: Article 25.

It became apparent that its inclusion directly enabled Great Britain in 1921-22 to tear away all the vast Mandatory territory east of the river Jordan and give it away to the Arab Hashemite tribe: The territory to become Trans-Jordan, led by the emir Abdullah.

British officials claimed that the gift of Mandatory Palestine east of the Jordan River was in gratitude to the Hashemites for their contribution in helping defeat the Turks. However, T.S. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) described in derisory terms the Hashemite role as “a side show of a side show.”

Ironically, Britain was aided far more by the Nili underground movement in defeating the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which had ruled geographical Palestine for 400 years.

This was the first partition of the non-state geographical territory known as Palestine and the first two-state solution. It created a new Arab entity some 100 years ago called Trans-Jordan, covering some 35,000 square miles, or nearly four fifths of the erstwhile Palestine Mandate. Immediately,

Jewish residence in this new Arab territory was forbidden in an act of Islamic apartheid (which no one protested on US college campuses...), and it is thus historically correct to state that Jordan is Palestine. Note too that Jordan’s population is comprised of well over 75% Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.

In 1923, the British and French colonial powers also divided up the northern part of the Palestine Mandate. Britain stripped away the Golan Heights (with its ancient Biblical Jewish roots) and gave it to French-occupied Syria.

The Balfour Declaration issued by Lord Balfour, British foreign secretary, never envisaged that the Jordan River would be the eastern boundary of the reconstituted Jewish homeland.

As early as September 19, 1919, the London Times newspaper had thundered in an editorial: “The Jordan will not do as the eastern frontier of Palestine … Palestine must have a good military frontier east of the river Jordan … Our duty as Mandatory is to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling state but one that is capable of vigorous and independent life.”

During its administration of the remaining Palestine Mandate’s tiny territory, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, (a mere forty miles in width) Britain severely restricted Jewish immigration and purchases of land while turning a blind eye to massive illegal Arab immigration into the territory from neighboring stagnant Arab territories. This had been Britain’s policy since it was given the Mandate from 1921/22 up until 1947 and Israel’s subsequent independence in 1948.

Britain’s sorry record of appeasement of the Arabs, at the expense of Jewish destiny in the remaining tiny territory, culminated in the infamous 1939 White Paper, which limited Jewish immigration to a total of just 75,000 souls over the next five years. This draconian policy, coming as it did on the eve of the outbreak of World War 2 and the Holocaust, was a deathblow to millions of Jews attempting to flee extermination by Nazi Germany.

Even Islamic Jihad doesn't claim it was "defending Gaza"

One of the dumber memes that came out during Operation Breaking Dawn was that "Palestinians have the right to defend themselves."

Given that virtually the only military actions by Gaza militants were shooting rockets into Israeli civilian communities (each one a war crime,) it is unclear how that defends Palestinians. Yet that is what these people are justifying: war crimes.

But there is a more fundamental issue: The idea that Islamic Jihad was "defending Gaza" is completely made up.

Islamic Jihad never claimed that this micro-war was about defending Gaza. It was all about...Islamic Jihad.

Their name for the fighting was "Unity of the Arenas," meaning that the message they wanted to give to Israel is that any Israeli actions against their terrorists and allies in the West Bank will result in responses from Gaza.

This article in the Islamic Jihad military wing website that declares that the battle was a success describes the goals and accomplishments from Islamic Jihad's perspective. And the safety and defense of Gazans is not even on their radar.

On the land of Palestine, no voice is louder than the voice of the resistance.. Once again, Gaza returns to the fore and the Mujahideen of Saraya al-Quds lead the stage of clashing with the Zionist enemy in the battle of unity of the arenas in order to keep the flame of the conflict burning with the usurping entity, and to confirm that Gaza is like Jenin, Nablus and Jerusalem, and that any aggression on the land and people are crossing all red lines and that all arenas will remain present to respond to the Zionist arrogance in all the cities of the occupied West Bank, and that all the desperate attempts of the occupation to eliminate Islamic jihad and resistance and break the rules of engagement that have been established by blood and fire will be broken on the rock of defiance and violence among the children of the school of (PIJ founder) Dr. Fathi Al-Shaqaqi .

The article is about a speech by Muhammad Hamid, a member of Islamic Jihad's political bureau, where he praised the fighting and described its goals.

Not once does he use the word "defend." Not once does he even mention the security or safety of Gazans. He does say, "the battle for the unity of the arenas is clear in purpose. There are no exceptions in the struggle of our Palestinian people, and there is no distinction between the blood spilled in the occupied West Bank and the blood spilled in Gaza, and therefore this battle has been of great strategic importance in the history of our Palestinian people."

Hamid gave two reasons for shooting the rockets at Israel. The first and primary one was as a response to Israeli arrests and attacks against terror cells in the West Bank, and the second was the assassination of terrorist Taysir al-Jabari on Friday. he was proud that they responded with hundreds of rockets within hours of the airstrike.

Notably, Hamid does not claim victory based on Israel's supposed agreement to release a couple of Islamic Jihad prisoners. In fact, Israel today said the opposite, that the Islamic Jihad terrorist leader Bassem Saadi will remain in custody for some more time.

Also, his words seem to lend support for Israel's charge that Islamic Jihad was planning a major attack in response to Saadi's arrest. Hamid is confirming that Islamic Jihad planned a major response to Saadi's arrest in order to "unify the arenas."

But defending Gaza? That is the least concern for Islamic Jihad. And the people of Gaza know this very well.

The Mehdi Hasans of the world who go on about "the right of Gazans to defend themselves" are doing nothing but defending terror. Just ask Islamic Jihad.

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Must-read: What the media always gets wrong when there is fighting in Gaza

Every time a war breaks out in Gaza, the media gets it wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

I described many of them in 2021; here is an updated version of that post.

A large percentage of Gaza rockets fall in Gaza, and many Gazans are killed because of them. I've documented this for years. I've shown how Hamas' own videos show rockets falling short.

When a family is killed in Gaza, it is very rare that it is an IDF mistake. Most of the time it is because a terrorist operative is in the house - either because he is a member of the family, sometimes it seems because he is using them as human shields. Other times it is because of Hamas rockets falling short. Sometimes it is because the IDF targeted a legitimate target that had a larger cache of explosives than was thought and it caused far more collateral damage than expected.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad hides the names of most of those killed. They do this to make it look like a larger percentage of the dead are civilians - and they did it in previous wars, too.

Speaking of, the Gaza Health Ministry and the "human rights" NGOs in Gaza (PCHR and Al Mezan) downplay any mention of terrorist casualties and often call terrorists "civilians" when they report the circumstances of those who have died. (Amnesty's obscenely dishonest "Gaza Platform" with statistics from the 2014 war relied on PCHR's initial reports, and as a result it lists more "civilians" than even the UN does. They know they are lying, I've let them know enough times, and they refuse to correct it.)

The media still has no idea what "proportionality" means in the context of international law. They make scorecards of how many have been killed on both sides as if the results are supposed to be "fair," implying that if only more Jews would be killed, then they can all be happy.

The media (and human rights groups) also don't understand the principle of distinction, pretending that it means that Israel cannot bomb a high value target if there are civilians around. It can, under proper circumstances.

Then again, the media is also part of the problem. Hamas has almost complete control over the media in Gaza. Citizens who speak freely to media know that they will be punished. Everyone sticks to the Hamas-approved script. International reporters know that they will be kicked out if they say anything not to Hamas' liking. Yet the media hardly ever mentions this, giving a false impression that their reporting is objective.

The media will also ignore most of Hamas' war crimes. Using ambulances or "press" credentials to transport weapons, using Gazans as human shields, using mosques as weapons depots, shooting from schools- - I once counted 19 different war crimes that Hamas has done in the Gaza wars, but "human rights groups" somehow only notice and denounce one.

Some other must-read background that will make you more knowledgeable than the most presigious journalists from the New York Times, the BBC and CNN:

Israel's success in keeping civilian casualties to a minimum in an urban war zone where the military targets are purposefully placed among civilians is unparalleled.

The decisions as to what Israel targets in Gaza is detailed, lengthy and adheres to international law. The media and Israel haters portray Israel as a spoiled baby who lashes out at anything that moves and I've never seen a serious mainstream media article that describes anything close to the reality that military experts understand.

If the media would miss one or two of these topics, there wouldn't be a problem. They are in the job of simplifying things for readers. But they consistently get basic things wrong, and always in the direction of making Israel look bad.

It is no accident.

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@Airwars takes a chapter from @Amnesty - creating a database that declares terrorists to be "civilians" (@DigFind_)

In 2015, Amnesty International created a website called the Gaza Platform, created with Forensic Architecture, that claimed to identify every casualty in the 2014 Gaza war and the circumstances around the incident.

As I showed at the time, the database was filled with inaccuracies, and many of the people that they claimed were civilian were in fact terrorists. Amnesty was aware of my research showing terrorists in their uniforms with guns that they called "civilian" and chose to keep the lies in the database - which is still available, today.

Airwars is another NGO that purports to document the innocent victims of war, and they do just what Amnesty did - they are calling legitimate military targets "civilians."

This is a Twitter thread by open source researcher DigFind on this:

Our investigation finds that award winning non-profit company @airwars is whitewashing terrorism with the help of high profile donors.

Airwars' interactive map project detailing the "civilian casualties" in Gaza was nominated for @amnesty media awards 2022.

Airwars is based at Goldsmiths, University of London @GoldsmithsUoL. Chris Woods @chrisjwoods is the founder and until yesterday the director. Chris also sits on Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi's Advisory Board.

Previously, Amnesty International @amnesty and Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi teamed up to create the "Gaza Platform", an online data visualization app that describes many known Palestinian terrorists as civilian casualties of the 2014 Gaza War.

Mohammed Barham Abu Draz (محمد برهم على أبو دراز) was a member of Al Qassam Brigades - a terrorist organization. He is listed as civilian casualty.
gazaplatform.amnesty.org/#1528

Same for Alaa’ Jamal Barda (علاء جمال بردع). He was a field commander with the same terror group.

https://gazaplatform.amnesty.org/#1528

Airwars receives funding from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust @jrct_uk, Open Society Foundations @OpenSociety, Stichting Democratie en Media, Reva and David Logan Foundation, and J. Leon Foundation.

On Airwars' Advisory Board are anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS)supporting Raed Jarrar @raedjarrar and Chris Cobb-Smith @CobbSmith. Both also linked to Amnesty.

@NGOmonitor background information on the two:

ngo-monitor.org/amnesty-usas-n…

CNN Cites Consultant Who Teams Up with NGOs to Bash IsraelOn May 24, 2022, CNN published an article alleging that evidence suggests that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces. This inflammatory charge, which was vehemently denied …https://www.ngo-monitor.org/cnn-cites-consultant-who-teams-up-with-ngos-to-bash-israel/

Amnesty-USA’s Newest Anti-Israel HiresAmnesty International and its various country branches systematically hire researchers and campaigners with histories of anti-Israel activism. These employees write analyses on Israel that are both in…https://www.ngo-monitor.org/amnesty-usas-newest-anti-israel-hires/

Some examples of "civilian casualties" that were actual Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Ezz El-Din Mohamed Helles (عز الدين محمد حلس) - member Al Qassam Brigades

Muhammad Yahya Abu Al-Atta (محمد يحيى أبو العطا) - field commander al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Muhammad Saeed Abu Al-Atta (محمد سعيد ابوالعطا) - field commander Al Qassam Brigades.

Osama Ashraf Abu Rida (اسامه اشرف ابو ريده) - Activist Fatah youth. Fatah Movement Eastern Region referred to him as their martyr hero.

Zaher Atya Anbar (زاهر عطية عنبر) - member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Nidal Al-Amoudi Brigade, a Gaza based armed group.

Yasser Al-Masry Abu Musab (ياسر المصري ابو مصعب) - Commander of the Deir al-Balah Brigade in Saraya al-Quds. Recently he died of injuries sustained in May 2021. Airwars' assessment of the IDF strike on Al-Masry - "civilian harm"

I'd like to add that when someone is misidentified as a civilian, it not only affects the raw statistics of the victims. If the IDF has a legitimate target that was of a high enough value, then under the laws of armed conflict they are allowed to attack it even if there are civilians that will be harmed. This is not a carte blanche to attack anyone without regard to civilians, but if the target is someone or something that is important enough, some collateral damage is acceptable according to the principle of proportionality.

This means that any civilians who were effectively used as human shields by the terrorists cannot be treated as if they were killed far away from any target. Unlike how NGOs like Amnesty and HRW frame it, their deaths are legal. Only if there was no military gain from the attack does it violate the laws of war. When NGOs pretend that every civilian is a victim of Israel, they have it backwards: they died because Hamas and other terrorists hid behind them.

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Military experts agree: Israel didn't break international law in Gaza, but Hamas did - and the media failed to report it

JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, created a Gaza Task Force to go to Israel and report on what they found out about the Gaza conflict last May.

The members of the task force are:

LTG Robert Ashley, USA (ret.), Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
LTG John M. Bednarek, USA (ret.), Former Senior Defense Official in Iraq; former Chief of Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad
LTC Geoffrey S. Corn, USA (ret.) Former Chief International Law for U.S. Army Europe
Lt Gen Jon Davis, USMC (ret.) Former Deputy Commandant for Aviation
LTG Karen Gibson, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Director for National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships
LTG Stephen Lanza, USA (ret.) Former Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis McChord
RADM Brian Losey, USN (ret.) Former Commander of Naval Special Warfare Command
Lt Gen Richard Natonski, USMC (ret.) Former Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command
LTG Raymond Palumbo, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command
GEN David Rodriguez, USA (ret.) Former Commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Lt Gen Thomas Trask, USAF (ret.) Former Vice Commander of United States Special Operations Command
Gen Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (EUCOM)

I'd say that this group has orders of magnitude more expertise in the laws of armed conflict than the entire staffs of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Council and Oxfam combined.

They released their report last month, with nearly no coverage in the media. And no wonder: they prove that the media and the NGOs they adore have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to international law.

The report does not only discuss what Israel did right. It also expands on Israel's missteps, mostly with messaging (the bombing of the Al Jalaa media building and the apparent deception to the world media that a ground operation was starting, for two.) It describes how Hamas learned lessons from previous wars and how they attempted to gain specific advantages. It discusses what lessons other democracies can learn from how Israel fought terrorists who are willing to make their own people human shields.

The report emphasizes how Hamas and its allies used the media to spread lies about the laws of armed conflict. Two examples of egregious ignorance about the laws of war from two popular comedy news hosts are given:

Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
On May 11, 2021, Trevor Noah did a segment on The Daily Show in which he argued that, because Israel is more militarily capable, it should refrain from defending itself: “If you were in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?”
John Oliver, Last Week Tonight
Oliver’s viral May 16, 2021, segment about Israeli actions included the unfounded accusation that it “targeted the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan,” and that the IDF’s strike on a multi-story building in Gaza used by Hamas “sure seems like war crime, regardless of whether you send a courtesy heads-up text.” Oliver dismissed Hamas' firing of rockets at Israeli civilian population centers because “most of the rockets aimed toward Israeli citizens this week were intercepted.”

Both of these examples were multiplied, subtly or not, by mainstream media coverage that amplified Hamas' and its supporters' lies that every civilian killed in a war is a war crime.

Two of the members of the task force wrote an op-ed in the New York Post today that summarized the findings and what it means for America in the future:

In its conflict with Hamas in May, Israel endured a barrage of rockets — as well as war-crime accusations. Iron Dome intercepted most of the former. The latter are more dangerous, for Israel and even the United States.

After reviewing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operations during the Gaza conflict as retired senior US military officers, we find these accusations spurious — fed by Hamas’ disinformation and a widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC. These dynamics could soon feature in conflicts involving the US military.

Delegitimizing Israeli operations — not military victory — was one of Hamas’ main objectives in this conflict. “The real crimes,” Hamas’ spokesperson told the media, “were committed by [Israel] targeting civilians … killing more than 100 children and women and demolishing buildings.”

With such false claims, Hamas casts any civilian casualty as illegal. Unfortunately, many in the media and public embraced this false narrative.

“Destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime,” comedian John Oliver opined on his show. Seeming like a war crime and being one are quite different.

LOAC requires militaries to distinguish between — and only attack — military, not civilian, targets. Commanders are obliged to make a good-faith effort to take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian risk.

These rules do not preclude unavoidable civilian casualties. It is a sad but undeniable reality of war that international law tolerates harm to civilians if it’s not deliberately inflicted, caused by indiscriminate attacks and avoidable with feasible precautions.

In our professional opinion, Israeli actions in Gaza reflected a consistent and good-faith commitment to respect and implement these LOAC principles.

As we've noted numerous times, modern wars involve messaging no less than munitions. The report shows that Israeli officials are almost resigned to the fact that the world will report unfairly anyway, but that doesn't mean they should give up improving how they get the truth across. The spokespeople should be involved nearly as much as the lawyers are in determining how to target and what information needs to be available instantly after an operation.